It has become conventional wisdom among the halls of the United States government that China will launch a full-scale invasion of Taiwan within the next few years. And when that happens, the US military has a relatively straightforward response in mind: Unleash hell. Speaking to The Washington Post on the sidelines of the International Institute for Strategic Studies' annual Shangri-La Dialogue in June, US Indo-Pacific Command chief Navy Admiral Samuel Paparo colorfully described the US military's contingency plan for a Chinese invasion of Taiwan as flooding the narrow Taiwan Strait between the two countries with swarms of thousands upon thousands of drones, by land, sea, and air, to delay a Chinese attack enough for the US and its allies to muster additional military assets in the region. "I want to turn the Taiwan Strait into an unmanned hellscape using a number of classified capabilities," Paparo said, "so that I can make their lives utterly miserable for a month, which buys me the time for the rest of everything." Cheap, easily weaponizable drones have transformed battlefields from Ukraine to the Middle East in recent years, and the US military is rapidly adapting to this new uncrewed future.

The Defense Department is speeding up its development of artificial intelligence tools for the commander of U.S. forces in the Indo-Pacific, according to a senior Defense official. AI can assist Admiral John Aquilino, who is focused on the threat from China, with some of the problems "he is most worried about," Deputy Defense secretary Kathleen Hicks said in an interview. "We're helping him with that," Hicks said of the Pentagon's efforts to develop AI applications for Aquilino's command, arguing that adversaries recognize the U.S. military's strength at command and control, or the ability to run missions and direct forces.